About David Bateman

Vic Firth American Concept Freestyle Series Vic Firth have designed the Freestyle series of sticks to draw inspiration from the world of freestyle longboard skateboards. The design incorporates an overall length of 17” with extra long tapers for all models to increase the area where a drummer can place their fulcrum. The range consists of 7A,

Adrian Kirchler (AK Drums) is a master snare drum maker and restorer. He’s particularly well known for creating drums modelled after those made in the 1920s/30s. As well as making drums under the AK name, he’s also made drums for Craviotto and Ludwig. I’ve been a big fan of Adrian’s work since about 2007 when

By David Bateman|
2019-02-04T14:32:51+00:00 February 4th, 2019|Categories: Features|Comments Off on Snare Drum Of The Month – The AK Triumphal

For 2019, Zildjian is releasing some brand new cymbals as well as some additions to existing models and we were very lucky that Zildjian let us take a sneak peak before they were launched at NAMM. 14” Sweet Hihats The Sweet hihats as a model aren’t new but Zildjian has now opened the line up to

By David Bateman|
2019-01-24T14:46:25+00:00 January 24th, 2019|Categories: Reviews|Comments Off on New Zildjian Cymbals For 2019 – First Look!

Flex Beaters are the invention of Rich Farago who designed them to improve drummer’s ergonomics while performing. Each beater has a flexion - the red or purple plastic part between the beater and shaft - which flexes when the beater comes into contact with the bass drum head. The purple flexion is slightly more flexible

By David Bateman|
2019-01-15T00:30:50+00:00 January 15th, 2019|Categories: Reviews|Comments Off on Dynamic Beaters – FlexBeater

Something a bit brighter for the New Year! This is a fairly stock drum in the sense that it was a regular production model for the few years the Club Custom line was available. That said though, I think it’s cool for two reasons; one, the finish - which I’ll come to - is different

By David Bateman|
2018-12-28T17:18:00+00:00 January 1st, 2019|Categories: Features|Comments Off on Snare Drum Of The Month – Yamaha Club Custom

12x6" PDP recently released some new artist model snare drums and as part of that, possibly the biggest part of that, were the three Chad Smith drums. All three of these models feature a seamless clear shell and are available as 12x6” (6 lug) & 13x7” (8 lug) versions - listed as being side snares

By David Bateman|
2018-12-15T16:00:25+00:00 December 15th, 2018|Categories: Reviews|Comments Off on PDP Chad Smith Acrylic Snares

Kauri is a species of wood that grows on the north island of New Zealand. Swamp kauri (also known as ancient kauri) is wood that was buried in marshland and only found in the last few decades. The trees themselves grew for around 1,000 to 2,000 years before they fell around the end of the

By David Bateman|
2018-12-01T00:51:48+00:00 December 1st, 2018|Categories: Features|Comments Off on Snare Drum Of The Month – Dunnett Ancient Kauri

As this is the start of a new series, I thought I’d come out of the gate with a little bit of style. The name Craviotto (https://www.craviottodrums.com) is probably known to most people by now. Or it should be anyway. This drum, which is number 14, was a limited run of just 25 pieces worldwide

By David Bateman|
2018-11-30T16:02:14+00:00 October 31st, 2018|Categories: Features|Comments Off on Snare Drum of the Month – Craviotto/Kirchler

Gretsch’s black nickel over steel snare drum falls within its Full Range line. The drum’s steel shell has 45’ bearing edges and comes with 2.3mm triple flanged hoops, 10 double ended lugs, 20-strand snare wires and Remo heads, the batter head being a CS reverse dot. The drum has a wide tuning range and to me,

By David Bateman|
2018-10-14T21:04:25+00:00 October 15th, 2018|Categories: Reviews|Comments Off on Gretsch Black Nickel Over Steel 14×6.5 Snare Drum

Something for the more image conscious drummer… At a time when you can get custom drum finishes and colours, coloured sticks, coloured cymbals and customisable hardware, it seems no surprise that we should now have the choice of coloured heads as well. Remo’s new Colortone drumheads feature the company’s Skyndeep® Imaging Technology which has been

By David Bateman|
2018-09-14T22:23:53+00:00 September 15th, 2018|Categories: Reviews|Comments Off on Remo Colortone Drum Heads